If you want free training in Microsoft's products, just get yourself accepted as a contestant in the new on-line reality show "Career factor."

Microsoft Australia has been forced to apologise for choosing to use the Australian Gold Coast’s “Meter Maids” during its Tuesday-night welcome party, with Microsoft Australia MD Tracey Fellows declaring it “just wrong” and “unacceptable”.

Windows Phone 7 has been getting a very public airing at Microsoft’s Tech.Ed 2010 in Australia, with demo handsets aplenty for attendees and journalists to play with, and with several sessions on business and consumer app development, Microsoft truly is “back in the game”, with Win Phone 7 devices shipping this year.

With over 2700 attendees at Microsoft’s annual Australian Tech.Ed conference, there’s clearly still huge support for Microsoft’s software and services, with plenty of detail to deeply delight devoted devs, catch attention with Kinect, amaze with Azure and spill more info on WinPho 7.

Microsoft’s own SourceForge-like repository of open source projects, CodePlex, celebrated its third anniversary recently. According to Sara Ford, CodePlex program manager, the site is accepted and welcomed among the fans of open source and Linux software.

It’s been an interesting few days at Microsoft’s annual Tech.Ed event, with this year naturally focusing on all of Microsoft’s big guns – Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, virtualisation, software development, Office 2010 – and just how nicely Win 7 RTM runs on netbooks!

Meet Sara Ford. She’s the program manager in charge of Microsoft’s answer to SourceForge, CodePlex. She’s also responsible for donating some $29,000 to families affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Microsoft Tech-Ed Australia 2009 is underway on the sunny Gold Coast, awash with a sea of HP netbooks given to every paying attendee. Yet not all of the fully sold-out crowd think the gift is so great. One participant is tweeting discontent about budget cuts under the alias teched09sucks.

A new range of Windows Mobile 6.5-powered smartphones will be available for retail purchase from October 6th. That date also sees the Windows Mobile marketplace open its doors. Microsoft told iTWire why iPhone developers will find it a superior software outlet, why Windows Mobile crashes, and how Microsoft thought of the app store first.

About 80 people turned up for a Lego building session during a Women in IT session at the TechEd conference being held by Microsoft on the Gold Coast this week.